Everyone seems to look for the silver bullet, the short cut, the easy way. Being a sales coach, I have seen every extreme of talent, technique and methods when talking to professional sales people.

By way to illustration, a commercial printer rep was the classic “show up to throw up” sales person. His sales strategy incorporated coming to my office with literally boxes full of his best work. He then proceeded, till I cut him off twenty minutes later on to ask him to tell me why his print shop was the best and how he was the most reasonable price in the town.

The thing is… he never basically asked me what I required or what problem I had. Of course, he did not get the sale.

This sounds like an extraordinary example, but sadly, its rather common-place. Sales is a unclean word to the majority of people. Why? Well let’s accept it—there are a large amount of bad sales folk out there. They come and gab your ear off about why they’re the most practical solution without taking a single moment to determine your requirement—if any.

Revenue covers up a lot of sins. Even more revenue covers up a lot more sins. Now, I’m not saying you should put up with a lot of sins, errors and omissions within your business. I’m making the point that increasing revenues certainly helps make them less obvious and hurtful.

The last couple of years has been a very telling time for most businesses in the US. The economic situation has generally affected every business, not just isolated ones and selected niches.

So, you need to get more revenue. And, you need to get it as fast as you can.

What you really need is to get yourself in front of more “hot prospects” under “favorable circumstances”.

Why?

The market—your market is a very competitive space. This applies to you regardless of how strong your foot hold might be. It is vastly more difficult to clearly demonstrate your value proposition.

You simply must be able to capture your prospective customer’s attention and compel them to take action.

Great copy is much more effective than everyday, run of the mill text. And, the greater the copy, the better.

Images can convey much more meaningful information. Note the infographic I have demonstrated here on the use of video.

And, the finest of all is to be able to use video. YouTube is the planet’s second most used search engine for a reason.

Yet, most businesses don’t use video in their marketing messages.

Of course there are always business cycles. The so called Great Recession that began in 2008 and continues through today is most certainly one. Very many businesses contract dramatically or fail during these down cycles. But, they are time of great opportunities. The natural reaction of many during a down business climate is retraction.

Many businesses in many different industries have, and continue to, cut expenses, cut staff, stop expansion, cease investing, halt developing their people and so forth.

Now is a great time to take advantage of others’ trepidation, fear and weakness.

I believe that Warren Buffett is known to insist the time to be greedy is when others are afraid.

When Milton Friedman wrote his famous article it stirred a great deal of controversy. Many people believe that profit making is an evil undertaking, while having a high level of social responsibility is more honorable. Friedman’s point was that business profit and social responsibility are one in the same. The text of his original article about increasing business profits is a must read.

However, that’s not the main points I’d like to make now. Instead, I’m going to continue under the premise that you, the reader, are in favor of increased business profits regardless of your view on social responsibility.

Key reasons why many businesses don’t increase business profits.